Most expensive non event?

Day 4 of the Louis Vitton cup and...............................

hmm 4 days of non racing, not enough wind, in fact no wind at all, we are making highlight programmes of highlights! all our days off are now extra race days, everyone's pissed off!

Oh well its curry night tonight, maybe there will be more wind tomorrow!

sugaRAPE!

I Lent a copy of the brilliant Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker comedy Nathan Barley to one of my fellow engineers Wayland, Last night myself and a couple of others went around for a spot of supper, and after buzzing the intercom got a 45 second SUGARAPE! after the first episode he was hooked!

That evening I stuck an episode on as I went to bed, it actually made me miss Soho a little bit.......but only a bit!

If you haven't seen it give it a go, especially if you work in the meejia.

Im Back!

No posts for the last couple of days, Judith came over to see me over Easter weekend, obviously there was no wind for one of the previous days racing so Saturday's reserve day became a race day! and if it could go wrong it went wrong........ and when I wasn't at work I was spending as much time as possible with Jude........... I will see her again in 3 weeks :-(

Managed to escape for two days after all though so jumped in the car and drove down to my parents in Murcia, stereotypically turned up with 2 bags of washing! thanks Mum!

Had a nice rest in "little England" and it was great to see the folks, and my brother. Unfortunately I will miss my brother Colin's 30th birthday but I'm sure he won't notice, and we'll have a drink in the UK in May.

Back to the grindstone today, pulled up in the car park this morning to 25 Maori warriors performing a hacker! Tourism New Zealand are really here in force, and the Prime Minister Helen Clarke is hosting a BBQ here on Saturday, should be quite interesting.

Racing starts again on Monday, but before hand we have a kind of opening ceremony (again) called the parade of boats. Unfortunately that means us engineers will spend the rest of the weekend re-patching the gallery's for the racing!

will post some photos of the operation after the weekend.


Stay Chilled!

Bens Brain

Its funny how people try to sabotage other people because they are jealous

Can you really call yourself an assistant editor if all you do is digitise tapes? I would call you a digitiser

People find it very easy to blame equipment, to cover up the inadequacy of their knowledge


over and out

Slo-Mo RIB

Spent my first day out on the water with the ultra motion camera today, and I must say I was quite impressed. I installed laptops in some funny places but I think on the back of a rigid inflatable boat (RIB) has got to be the most mad so far!

For some reason the Ultra motion camera has been designated a post production item, hence why I'm hanging on for dear life with a laptop in the back of a boat while the cameraman shouts hurry up on the download so he can shoot something else. The basics of how it works:

The camera head is set into a looping capture with (depending on the frame rate you are capturing at) around 5 seconds of record before it loops. you have a chap with a laptop (Me) hooked up to the camera, that operates the trigger, when the camera is triggered the capture is then saved into the camera head, so if you are capturing at 500 pictures per second you may set it to capture 250pps before the trigger and 250pps after the trigger, this is completely customisable as to how you want it. Then you select an in and an out point on the capture and save the file out to the hard drive of the laptop, this then downloads it from the camera head and saves it out as the file format you want, all this with the boat bobbing up and down quite heavily!

I loved every second!

Google tisp

I forgot it was April Fools day today! until I came across this Google advert for broadband. When your working solid without a day off or weekend you tend to lose track of what day it is!

Check out the full site: http://www.google.com/tisp/

An Intersting article from AC official site

America's Cup television - coming soon to a TV near you Television coverage is a crucial part of the America’s Cup. As the sport takes place offshore, out of sight from everyone other than those fortunate enough to be on spectator boats, television is often the best way to follow the racing. ACTV is the host broadcaster for the 32nd America’s Cup. As such, ACTV is responsible for producing and distributing television coverage of the Cup in the form of ‘live’ television, highlights and daily news package productions which are distributed to over 100 countries around the world.

Broadcasters ACTV operates from the IBC (International Broadcast Centre) located directly behind the Emirates Team New Zealand base in close proximity to the Media Centre. The IBC is the headquarters for all broadcast television operations and administration during the 32nd America’s Cup. It is a new facility designed specifically to accommodate the needs of television broadcasters and serves as the primary base for the host broadcast and rights holding broadcaster operations and personnel. The television suites have panoramic views over Port America’s Cup, providing the perfect backdrop for broadcasters presenting live shows. During the 2007 season, more than 100 host broadcast crew and 500 rights-holder TV production crew are expected to use the IBC, a significant increase in TV personnel compared with previous Cups. ACTV’s Caroline Hunt has been overseeing a busy week’s activity for the team, and is looking forward to the racing beginning next week. “Five of the 10 broadcasters have now arrived on-site and have been busy installing all their equipment and cabling within the IBC, TV compound and presentation studios, in addition to setting up their 'studio sets' in the presentation studios,” said Hunt. Meanwhile, ACTV's technical installation programme is close to completion; the 'master control room', the 'technical operations centre', all edit suites and on-board camera systems have been successfully tested. “Once we have rigged all our chase boats and helicopters, ACTV will be ready for April 3rd when the competition begins.” ACTV will produce three TV feeds – one world feed, one Romeo and one Juliet (reflecting the two race areas). Each has a live director and producer to ensure the best coverage. The ‘world’ feed is a compilation of the other two, with the addition of full 2D and 3D graphics. The ‘Romeo’ and ‘Juliet’ feeds focus on the action on each race course. TV facts in numbers:

33 – the maximum number of cameras in use at one time (helicopters, catamarans, RIBs and competing yachts)
24 – total number of cameras on board competing yachts including 12 fully agile and 12 fixed cameras during the Round Robin phases of the Louis Vuitton Cup.
6 – number of cameras on board each competing yacht in the Louis Vuitton Cup final and 32nd America’s Cup Match
Over 300 – Minimum number of hours of ‘live’ coverage distributed to rights-holders
36 – minimum number of 26-minute highlight shows distributed to rights-holders
134 – number of production people employed by ACTV on site in Valencia
Over 500 – number of people employed by rights-holders on site in Valencia